Dodgy delivery driver caught on camera

Delivery driver filmed smashing parcel and urinating on the house

A UPS delivery driver in Houston has hit the headlines, after being caught on camera chucking a package over a high fence into a back garden, then glancing around him to check no-one was watching, before urinating on the man's house.

The homeowner told KHOU.com that chucking the package was bad enough, because it smashed the shell of the cleaner he was having delivered. However, he was appalled that the driver relieved himself on the property too.

He complained to UPS, and was dissatisfied with the response, so posted the footage onto its Facebook site, and to the KHOU site too. Fox 31 reported that as a result of the footage the company apologised, and sent the homeowner a gift as an apology. The driver is no longer working for the company.

Delivery hell

Stories of botched deliveries are all over social media. The UPS Facebook feed, for example, has a never-ending steam of people posting to the page of their terrible experiences of parcels not being delivered, or never showing up at all.

In December, last year, we reported on the courier who decided that the best place to leave a parcel they couldn't deliver was at the bottom of a wheelie bin. Fortunately the homeowner was able to retrieve it before bin day - the following day. However, it opened the floodgates of tales of shocking deliveries.

There were several more where the parcel had been left in the bin - and then the bin emptied later that day. There were several left by (or in) bins several houses (or streets) away, there were smashed items thrown over gates, items lost after being left in a hedge, a parcel rammed through the cat flap - which took it off the wall and traumatised the cat, and a £100 dress stuffed into a plant pot.

The problem in some instances is that couriers use self-employed drovers. They pay for their own fuel and cars, and are paid per parcel. They are able to work unlimited hours to get the parcels delivered, but with a low parcel rate, it starts to become a terribly poorly paying job if they have to reattempt delivery several times. As a result, they often want a speedy solution, and some delivery drivers make unwise compromises.